"I told my guys here in Montreal in early July, 'We'll be lucky if we play before December,'" said Cole. "A lot of them didn't believe me until we started doing the NHLPA conference calls." Oct. 11 was originally slated to be the start of the season, but the first two weeks have already been canceled. Meanwhile, the CBA talks are ongoing, but the two sides have largely sidestepped the core economic issues that stand in the way of a 2012-13 campaign.